Blessings are an over-looked buff in Skyrim, providing a temporary bonus that lasts for 8 hours (in real life time). To acquire a buff, simply visit and activate the relevant shrine.
None of them grant active powers, instead they’re all passive bonuses, with one available for every play style available.
You should always keep a blessing active, making sure to go out of your way to activate them. Small tasks like this all add up, making your play-through a lot easier. Pretty much mandatory at higher difficulty settings.
Here’s the 10 best blessings in Skyrim, with locations listed so you always know where to find them!
10. Boethiah
Shrine Location: Raven Rock Temple
For one-handed melee characters, the blessing of Boethiah boosts one-handed damage by 15%.
Dual wielding characters are especially potent with this blessing active, out-putting massive amounts of damage.
9. Nocturnal
Shrine Location: The Ragged Flagon
You become 10% harder to detect while sneaking with this blessing. One that is quite niche, mostly for helping to level your stealth skills.
Sneaking is a fairly under-valued skill in Skyrim, taking a second to ensure a sneak attack bonus can help you get through fights way faster!
8. Akatosh
Shrine Location: Temple of the Divines as well as Steamcrag Hollock and a hill near Rorikstead.
One for those magic users with magicka problems, the blessing of Akatosh bolsters magicka regeneration by 10%. Activating this blessing will also cure all contracted diseases.
Combined with various standing stones, robes and rings, you’ll find yourself recovering magicka in a pinch.
7. Dibella
Shrine Location: Temple of the Divines as well as a number of other locations, see the list on the wiki.
One of the most unique aspects of the worlds that Bethesda creates is their dialogue. You can often convince, intimidate or bribe NPCs to your will.
This is where the blessing of Dibella comes in, boosting Speech by 10 points, making those dialogue options more successful!
6. Julianos
Shrine Location: Temple of the Divines as well as Fellglow Keep and Harmugstahl.
A rather simple one, boosting magicka by a flat 25 points. In general, a higher magicka pool is better overall for combat, instead of waiting for magicka to regenerate.
Depends on your build though, if you already have a ton of magicka then you might prefer the regeneration blessing!
5. Kynareth
Shrine Location: Temple of the Divines as well as a number of other locations, see the list on the wiki.
Boosting stamina by 25 points, this blessing is mostly recommended for tankier character builds. Or for any build that needs a inventory weight boost.
Stamina is also useful for covering large distances, as sprinting does deplete your reserves quickly.
4. Zenithar
Shrine Location: Temple of the Divines as well as a number of other locations, see the list on the wiki.
Get in the habit of keeping loot stocked up and ready to sell all at once. Then, activate this shrine to get 10% better prices before selling to merchants. Equip other enchanted items to further increase selling values.
Everyone loves gold but few go out of their way to maximise the amount they can get!
3. Arkay
Shrine Location: Temple of the Divines as well as a number of other locations, see the list on the wiki.
Health is boosted by 25 points with this shrine blessing, something every character can make use of, regardless of skill choices or play style.
2. Azura
Shrine Location: Raven Rock Temple
Available on with the Dragonborn DLC, the shrine of Azura grants a crazy 10% magic resistance. For mage, ranged or tanky characters, such a bonus is huge.
Dragon attacks, necromancers, falmer, almost any enemy type you can encounter will utilise some sort of offensive magic. Having such a strong blessing to back you up is invaluable.
1. Talos
Shrine Location: Temple of the Divines as well as a number of other locations, see the list on the wiki.
For pure usefulness, regardless of your character build/style, the blessing of Talos is the best. It’ll reduce time between shouts by 20%. We all have a favorite shout or two, many of us even rely on them a lot.
Shout up-time can be a huge boost to every aspect of Skyrim, whether it be travelling, bartering or combat!
Related Skyrim Guides
Uncover the secrets of Skyrim with our collection of guides. Our team of experts has delved deep into the game’s lore, characters, and mechanics to bring you the most comprehensive and engaging content.
Shane
Wednesday 20th of May 2020
I have multiple shouts that i utilise a lot, and changing shouts ive seen changed the wait times accordingly when you change them so if you uses unrelenting force, and switch it to my fire breath, i will be waiting on the cool down for fire breath. Whivh i think is kind of broken but however its a big help when you just used a full shout and you switch to another shout that has a smaller cool down wait.